Break Gently
by Shoiryu
Summary: What if something so small wasn't enough?


**BREAK GENTLY**

They'd given it to him on the night he'd chosen his first Padawan.

It was small enough to fit into the little pouch sewn into his belt at the small of his back, out of sight enough that the thought of it could be put aside, but heavy enough that movement in certain directions always reminded him that it was there. Qui-Gon knew what it was for, of course. He and every other Master the Council could lay hands on at the time had been given strict instructions as to when and how it was to be used, what circumstances were appropriate, and the proper procedure to minimalize "mess".

Qui-Gon hadn't cared for that word usage. "Mess". It implied violence and suffering, and while he was not a man adverse to such things _per se_, they had their place. This, by sheer definition of the relationship, was not it. A Master and Padawan's bond implied protection, patience with all things, parenting.

Out of all of these things he was only well acquainted with one of them, but Qui-Gon had never been unwilling to learn something new. Or so he told himself, eyeing the slender black-haired child who sat humming tunelessly on the edge of Qui-Gon's bed, swinging his short legs with his hands folded together in his lap as though he were trying to avoid physically touching the rest of the world as best he could. Qui-Gon watched him over the edge of his teacup, quietly familiarizing himself with little nuances of movement, the set of the small shoulders and the pitch of the voice when Xanatos looked up to address him. Smiling vaguely in his private way, Qui-Gon gave him tea that would help him sleep, tucked him into his own bed and left him there, guarded only by Qui-Gon's watchful touch on his mind.

Qui-Gon could feel nothing but hope for the future in that moment. The boy was powerful, promising, obedient, and eager to know more, and though Qui-Gon was certain he did not love the boy, he valued him and the potential he held. The object, waiting in its little pouch, was forgotten for years.

He'd spoken to his own Master after Xanatos' betrayal and departure, had asked him, quietly, if he too had carried such a device, had he ever been tempted to use it; it had occurred to Qui-Gon in hindsight that he should have considered the thing more seriously, the ramifications of using it so early. Dooku, rational, unsmiling Dooku, had reached around to his own back pouch, held it out in an uncurled hand for Qui-Gon to see, saying nothing at all. The item was unused, and Qui-Gon had bowed deeply and sincerely to his Master for the first time in decades, murmuring a thanks so hoarse he could not even hear his own voice.

"There was never a need," said Dooku, solemnly, and Qui-Gon had learned a new kind of gratitude in that moment.

Patience with other people was something he found himself struggling with more and more, as the years passed and the inclination to take on another apprentice waned. Little hints dropped by colleagues, invitations to come and watch the younglings at their sparring practices, to come and observe them at their games, playing in the Temple Gardens, it was all enough to set his nerves singing with irritation, to drive him back to the solitude of his datacubes and his favorite nooks and corners of the Archives, where time was better spent gathering more knowledge rather than trying to nurse wounded dreams. There was no point in hoping that he could be anything more than he already was. Hope implied too much of weakness and offered only shattered trust.

Qui-Gon was aware that remembering his own mistakes was important. But he was not fond of dwelling on the mistakes of others. Instead he lost himself in the flora and fauna of far off jungles he had not visited for years, the customs of civilizations which he hadn't needed to remember since he'd been young, freshly Knighted and completely and utterly immortal, untethered by a need for other people or some ridiculous desire to pass himself on to the next generation.

The galaxy only really needed Qui-Gon Jinn in small and unimportant places, he thought, and the idea was not at all unpleasant. Only freeing, or so he told himself, and he was even patient with the youngling who one day began to make it habit to intrude upon his solitude.

The child was small and slender and seemed rather breakable, tucked into the agricultural corner with his knees against his chest. The air of fragility had nothing to do with his physical appearance; he had a look about him that said that one day he'd grow up strong and stocky. Instead it was something that seemed to hang about him like a fine mist, an uneasy anticipation, like he was waiting for someone to come and touch him on the shoulder and inform him that he'd done something very wrong.

Qui-Gon settled himself nearby, and ignored him, and he ignored the shy, curious eyes that followed the movements of his hands against ancient flimsy. It was easy enough to do. The child made no sound save the soft whispering noise of his nails rubbing gingerly at the back of his neck.

A week passed that way. Sometimes the coppery-haired boy padded quietly past Qui-Gon on his way to his customary corner, sometimes Qui-Gon rounded the shelves and found that pair of wide grey-blue eyes watching him cautiously over the edge of a large old fashioned scroll. Qui-Gon always felt as though he'd come upon some kind of small grazing animal that had only just decided it might be safe with this gigantic human nearby, and that sharing space was tolerable so long as Qui-Gon made no sudden movements.

The boy's reading habits didn't seem to vary at all. He read extensively on the topic of vegetable gardening, how to coax flowers to grow with the power of voice alone and when to till the soil on the moons of Mendara, a wide variety of farming methods and strange little techniques that would have been no use to any Jedi who expected to live a normal life. They weren't topics Qui-Gon would have thought a boy of such a young age would be at all interested in, but the child poured over them as though they held the very secrets of the Force scrawled between their dusty pages and etched onto their worn circuits.

On the eighth day Qui-Gon turned off his datacube and said, "What's your name?"

There was a pause, though the boy didn't start as Qui-Gon had thought he might. No shrinking violet, then. Just quiet.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi," said the boy, and then added, "Master Jinn," as though the title was a mere afterthought, but Qui-Gon interpreted it as it was meant to be taken: _I know who you are already._

"How old are you, Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

"Eleven," said Obi-Wan, folding the Gongourian book he was holding against his chest and regarding Qui-Gon seriously. Qui-Gon did not look at him, instead stared straight down at the table before him, eyes unseeing of anything but the Force and its colors and shapes and strings, of anything but the shape of the boy within the flow.

"Young to be preparing for the Agricultural Corps," he murmured, and he felt Obi-Wan's wince like a crack in a pane of glass, spreading towards him. "Don't you think?"

"No," said Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon could hear the defensiveness and defiance in his voice, could read it in his mannerisms, and was glad he'd provoked it.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was not the sweet cherub he made himself out to be, but Qui-Gon had guessed at that long before he decided to take the boy on as his Padawan. He carried himself with an outward hesitance, choosing to quietly observe the world around him until perhaps, Qui-Gon thought, he'd learned enough that he could effectively take nearly anyone down a peg or two. Obi-Wan was not shy; rather the opposite, as Qui-Gon discovered over the course of their first week together, when the boy decided that a messy living space was a shortcoming on Qui-Gon's part, and thought it would be best to inform him. Qui-Gon had listened in bemusement as a person barely half his height and over thirty years his junior attempted to tell him how he could more effectively live his life if he'd only make attempts to be neater.

Obi-Wan had giggled a bit, though, once he'd been dumped unceremoniously on his own bed for his attitude. "I'm only trying to help, Master," he'd said, sitting up in a tangle of blankets and beaming at Qui-Gon as though pleased at the idea that he might have irritated his new mentor so deeply. "You don't take very good care of yourself, you know."

"_I_ am not the point of this Master and Apprentice exercise," Qui-Gon had replied, eyebrows raised and arms crossed as he regarded the boy. "You are."

"Master Yoda says a Master learns more from his Padawan than the Padawan does from him," Obi-Wan had informed him primly, folding his arms in a mockery of Qui-Gon's own posture, and Qui-Gon had only stared at him, years of intensive Jedi training all coming together at once simply to conceal the smile that had threatened to bloom in response.

"We'll see about that."

Obi-Wan had been studying agricultural techniques with the idea that, as long as he was going to be a failure as Jedi, he was certainly going to be the very best farmer he could possibly be. The spirit of dedication was in him, serious, straight-shouldered and firm. Looking at him one could imagine the Knight he'd be someday, a man of principle and muscle and that underlying current of deceptive gentleness. There was a sweetness in him that could not be avoided, though it warred often with his stubborn will. He had yet to grow into his attitude, and it sometimes spilled over in little defiant moments, brief splinters of anger or frustration or impatience with Qui-Gon's easy-going and sometimes entirely daredevil methods. Obi-Wan was a study in complexity.

Very privately, using words he would not have voiced to anyone else, Qui-Gon thought he was perfect.

At night, when the boy couldn't sleep, Qui-Gon told him stories, fantastic and seemingly impossible tales of a nameless young Jedi Knight who traveled the galaxy alone and proud, making strange alliances where ever he went and having wonderful, ridiculous adventures. Taken prisoner for three days on one of the moons of Endor by a race of tiny furred sentients, who eventually set his broken leg for him and helped him flag down a passing transport for rescue. Diving into deep dark oceans to find hidden cities that gleamed in silver and dusky violet, hidden among the coral to avoid the looming shadows of passing sea monsters. Rescuing kidnapped princesses who turned out in the end to be princes instead, a fact which did not much change the nature of the Knight's reward. (When it was necessary, Qui-Gon edited for content.)

They were tales he had never shared before, with anyone, and if Obi-Wan ever caught on that the nameless Jedi bore great similarity to his Master, he never mentioned it. Qui-Gon spoke quietly and evenly, and spun his life's work into story form without the cloying sweetness of fairy tales.

Time passed, and the weight of the object in Qui-Gon's belt pouch grew heavy again. He didn't understand why he was remembering it only now. Perhaps the Force was pointing to something he was not meant to forget. Perhaps something of significance was poised to occur. After he'd seen Obi-Wan to bed one night, Qui-Gon sat in the darkness and looked at the object in silence, turning it over between his fingers and memorizing the shape of it, the smooth metal and the quiet _plip_ of the liquid moving within.

What if something so small wasn't enough? Obi-Wan was growing every day, in constant need of new clothes and new boots and every tiny thing that had been so well suited to his small size once upon a time. It almost felt as though they made trips back and forth to the outfitters daily to keep up with Obi-Wan's rapidly changing size; he was nearing thirteen and already the top of his head was level with Qui-Gon's breast bone.

The object's contents, he decided, were too small. Qui-Gon did the research, made the quantity measurements, carried datacubes back and forth from the Archives to his rooms. "They just measured me at my checkup, Master!" Obi-Wan protested, when Qui-Gon expressed doubts over his exact weight. It was the evening of his thirteenth birthday and as was required he had been to see the medics only that morning. "Why is it so important?"

"It just is," Qui-Gon replied gruffly, though his hand found the boy's head in a brief caress, an attempt to soothe Obi-Wan's irritation at so much sudden prodding. It was important because it was for Obi-Wan's own good, Qui-Gon told himself. To protect things more important than the body, for the body was only a vessel as far as the Jedi were concerned.

Of course, Qui-Gon would never actually use the object. This obsession was unnecessary, and strange, whatever good intentions he might have. There would never be a need, never a circumstance under which it might be necessary, and he tried to push the shadow of old betrayal from his heart.

Weeks later their ship crashed under siege onto the surface of an unknown jungle planet, into the midst of a stampede of giant four-legged beings with limbs like thick tree trunks and six wild eyes. There was no time to be gentle nor to stop and examine Obi-Wan for serious injury; Qui-Gon extracted his limp body from the ruined craft and ran for it, his entire focus on predicting where the next broad crushing foot would land as trees splintered and fell around them. A fallen and long hollowed log offered shelter, and Qui-Gon huddled within it, his larger body wrapped securely around Obi-Wan's smaller one as he waited for the animals to pass. He reached around to his back belt pouch and came up with an emergency transmitter, and the small forbidden object pressed close against it within his palm.

Qui-Gon gently tucked Obi-Wan against his chest and tried to regain his bearings.

The thunderous noise of the passing stampede had quieted, and Qui-Gon understood then that Obi-Wan was dying. There would be no saving him. The boy's breathing was an agonized effort, each struggling heave of his mangled chest sending more flecks of blood spraying in tiny droplets against the pale material of Qui-Gon's sleeve. His hands clenched and unclenched in spasmodic twitches of pain, muscles jerking uncontrollably every now and then. Qui-Gon smoothed a hand down the pale expanse of skin where Obi-Wan's neck joined his collarbone, and felt the flow of his life beneath it all, felt it slowing, bit by bit by bit.

Obi-Wan, struggling to live. Obi-Wan struggling to overcome. Struggling to be still, to keep his whimpers quiet as he died in his Master's arms, fighting to be unobtrusive, compliant, submissive, good. Qui-Gon pressed the tip of the object to the underside of Obi-Wan's jaw and Obi-Wan lifted his head unawares, as though this was just another touch of hands to try to soothe his impossible pain. Gentle pressure against the sensor on the side of the object caused the metal lining to fall away, revealing a hypospray filled with clear fluid, the injection needle resting soft against Obi-Wan's skin. A comfortable sort of quiet crept into Qui-Gon's consciousness; he wondered if this was the touch of the Force upon his hand, guiding him into this motion of silence.

Perhaps the will of the Force. Perhaps his own fear of inadequacy. Perhaps a test of his will and his dedication. Perhaps any number of subconscious reasons that such an act finally seemed appropriate, when for so long he had struggled against the idea.

Perhaps wrong, for all that the act of murdering one's student to save him from pain seemed suddenly to Qui-Gon to be far more about the Master's fear, and not the Padawan's safety.

Perhaps it always had been.

_A Jedi is more than the sum of his adventures and accomplishments. A Jedi is more than the sum of his virtues. _

_A Jedi holds compassion, but lets go of his attachments. _

_A Master must guard his Padawan over all else. _

**_There is no death-_**

With deliberate movements Qui-Gon put the poison dose back into his belt pouch, and eased Obi-Wan up against his shoulder and into a somewhat more comfortable position. Whatever else happened, they would finish this or be finished together. A Padawan's place was at his Master's side, and some instinct whispered to Qui-Gon that his life would have no meaning if Obi-Wan did not survive.

The thought had hardly crossed his mind when he heard voices calling his name.

It was dumb luck that there had been other Jedi in the area to receive his distress call, Master Gyyla Vel told him afterwards as they stood together outside the operating room. She and her Padawan hadn't even been on course at the time, and were attempting to recalculate a hyperspace jump when they'd received Qui-Gon's distress call. Dumb luck, that there was a settlement on one of the planet's moons, with a fine medical facility and capable, Jedi-friendly doctors. Dumb luck, said the doctor, when she emerged, removing gloves from her long delicate fingers, that the crash hadn't left Obi-Wan paralyzed, or dead on the scene.

Qui-Gon did not believe in luck. Qui-Gon believed in Qui-Gon, and in personal choices, and on most days, in the will of the Force. He spent an uncomfortable but silent night sleeping in a chair at Obi-Wan's bedside, and in the morning he disposed of the unused object in the nearest trace receptacle.

He never let it cross his mind again.


End file.
